BUNKER, Edward. No Beast So Fierce. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 1973. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s cream cloth lettered in black and red the spine, in the dust jacket designed by Larry Lurin using a photograph by Eileen Lewis, with the two evocative mug shot photographs of the author to rear panel. A smart example overall, the cloth clean, gently pushed at the spine and a touch concave thus. The binding tight and square, the contents clean and fine but for a touch of offsetting to endpapers, light stains at margins of p.14-15. The dust jacket with printed priced of $6.95 with bottom corner of front flap neatly cut by publisher. The spine just a trifle faded, with closed tear at rear panel upper joint. A very sharp copy.
Serial criminal Edward Bunker’s first published novel, a hardboiled crime tale cited as ‘perhaps the best novel of the LA underworld ever written’ by a fellow candidate for that accolade, James Ellroy. Seemingly forced into a life of crime following a rough childhood, Bunker published this debut while still incarcerated at Folsom State Prison, and upon release he realised he could make a living as a writer, thus giving up the criminality. After the film adaptation (under the title Straight Time), more books and their respective adaptations followed, alongside various film credits, but this remains his magnum opus.
BUNKER, Edward. No Beast So Fierce. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 1973. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s cream cloth lettered in black and red the spine, in the dust jacket designed by Larry Lurin using a photograph by Eileen Lewis, with the two evocative mug shot photographs of the author to rear panel. A smart example overall, the cloth clean, gently pushed at the spine and a touch concave thus. The binding tight and square, the contents clean and fine but for a touch of offsetting to endpapers, light stains at margins of p.14-15. The dust jacket with printed priced of $6.95 with bottom corner of front flap neatly cut by publisher. The spine just a trifle faded, with closed tear at rear panel upper joint. A very sharp copy.
Serial criminal Edward Bunker’s first published novel, a hardboiled crime tale cited as ‘perhaps the best novel of the LA underworld ever written’ by a fellow candidate for that accolade, James Ellroy. Seemingly forced into a life of crime following a rough childhood, Bunker published this debut while still incarcerated at Folsom State Prison, and upon release he realised he could make a living as a writer, thus giving up the criminality. After the film adaptation (under the title Straight Time), more books and their respective adaptations followed, alongside various film credits, but this remains his magnum opus.
